Nick straightened his knees and got up. "Do you know what I would do if I had two hands, Olga _mia?_" he said.

She looked up questioningly. His face was for the moment grim.

"I would take you by the shoulders and give you a jolly good shaking,"

he said.

She opened her eyes in astonishment. "Really, Nick!"

"Yes, really," he said. "You didn't hear a word of what I said just now."

"Oh, but I did!" she protested, flushing in earnest this time. "I heard you and I answered you."

"Oh, yes, you answered me," he said, "as kindly and indulgently as if I had been prattling like Peggy Musgrave. I won't put up with it any longer, my chicken. Understand?"

He put his hand under her chin and turned her face upwards.

She quivered a little and the tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm sorry, Nick," she said.

He shook his head at her. "I won't have you sorry. That's just the grievance. Be hurt, be indignant, be angry! Sulk even! I know how to treat sulks. But don't cry, and don't be sorry! I shall be furious if you cry."

She smiled up at him wistfully, saying nothing.

"Fact of the matter is," proceeded Nick, "you're spoilt. It's high time I put my foot down. If you don't wake up, I'll make you take a cold bath every morning and swing dumb-bells for half an hour after it."

She began to laugh. "I love to see you playing tyrant, Nick."

He let her go. "I'm not playing, my child. I'm in sober, deadly earnest.

Have you made up your mind yet what you're going to say to young Noel when he asks you to marry him?"

She started. "Oh, really, Nick!" she said again, this time with a touch of annoyance in her tone.

He smiled as he heard it. "It's coming, I a.s.sure you. You see, the station is short of girls, and our young friend is impressionable. He is the sort of amorous swain who gets engaged to a dozen before he settles down to marriage with one. The question for you to decide is, are you going to be one of the dozen?"

"No, that I certainly am not." Olga spoke with undoubted emphasis, and having spoken rose and laid her hands upon Nick's shoulders. "I don't think he would be so silly as to ask me," she said. "And if he did, I certainly should not be silly enough to say Yes."

"I'm glad to hear that anyway," said Nick briskly. "I was afraid you might accept him out of sheer boredom."

"Nick! I'm not bored!"

He looked at her quizzically, as if he did not quite believe her.

"I am not bored," she reiterated, with something like vehemence. "I am happier with you than with anyone else in the world."

"Really?" said Nick, still smiling.

"Don't you believe me?" she said.

He laughed. "Not quite, dear; but that's not your fault. What are you going to wear to-night?"

Nick could switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and abandoned the discussion, albeit slightly dissatisfied.

They separated soon after to dress for the Rajah's dinner. Olga had chosen a dress of palest mauve, and very fair and delicate she looked in it. In a crowd of girls she would doubtless have been pa.s.sed over by all but the most observant, but she was not one of a crowd at Sharapura.

There were not many girls in that region, or Noel Wyndham's volatile fancy had scarcely strayed in her direction.

She told herself this with a faint smile, as she took a final glance at herself when her _ayah_ had finished. There never had been any personal vanity about Olga, and that night she told herself she looked positively ugly. What in the world did Noel see in her, she wondered? It seemed incredible that any man could find anything to admire in the colourless image that confronted her.

And yet as she went up the Palace steps with Nick into the blaze of light that awaited them, he was the first to greet her, and she saw his eyes kindle at the sight of her after a fashion that made her heart contract with a sudden pain for which at the moment she was wholly at a loss to account.

"I say, you look topping!" he said, smiling down at her with pleasing effrontery. "Do you know you are very nearly late? I've been watching out for you for the past ten minutes."

"What a waste of time!" said Olga; but she returned his smile, for she could not do otherwise.

"No! Why? I had nothing better to do," he a.s.sured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to a sixpence that they haven't."

Olga refused to take this generous offer, saying she had no sixpences to spare him, a remark which he declared to be both premature and uncalled for.

"You shouldn't kick a man before he's down," he said. "It's bad policy.

If you have to sit next to me after that, it will serve you right."

But when she found that he actually was to be her neighbour she was far from quarrelling with the destiny that made him so. He was so blithe and gay of heart, so blandly impudent, the very wine seemed to shine the redder for his presence. It was not in her nature to flirt with any man, but it was utterly impossibly not to enjoy his society. Less and less did she believe that his b.u.t.terfly pursuit of her had in it the smallest element of serious intention. He was altogether too young and giddy for such things. She dismissed the matter without further misgiving.

CHAPTER IV

THE PHANTOM

Without Noel she would have found that State dinner as dreary as it was pompous. The Rajah was occupied with discussing the laws of British sport with Colonel Bradlaw who regarded himself as an authority on such matters, and expressed his opinions ponderously and at extreme length.

Nick was far away down the long table, seated beside Daisy Musgrave, obviously to their mutual satisfaction. A bubbling oasis of gaiety surrounded them. Evidently the general atmosphere of state and ceremony was less oppressive in that quarter.

"Where would you be without me to take care of you?" said Noel, boldly intercepting her glance in their direction.

"I am not at all bad at taking care of myself," she told him.

"I say--forgive me--I don't believe that," said Noel, with calm effrontery. "You would simply fall a prey to the first ogre who came along."

Olga elevated her chin slightly. "That shows how much you know about me."

"I know a great deal," said Noel, with an ardent glance. "And that's what makes me want to know much more. You know, you're horribly tantalizing, if you will allow me to say so."

"In what way?" She spoke coolly; there was a hint of challenge in the grey eyes she turned upon him.

He laughed without embarra.s.sment. "I can't quite explain. There's something so elusively attractive--or do I mean attractively elusive?--about you. I call you 'the will-o'-the-wisp girl' to my own private soul."

"I hope your own private soul is too sensible to encourage such nonsense," said Olga severely.